


two women walk into a bar

by voltemand



Category: Oblivion (2013)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27319507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltemand/pseuds/voltemand
Summary: Call the bar Earth. It’ll stand the name. Call one of the women—the dead one—Vika. The other one is me.
Relationships: Julia Rusakova Harper/Victoria "Vika" Olsen
Kudos: 6





	two women walk into a bar

Two women walk into a bar, and one is beautiful and the other is dead. She’s beautiful too, but the first thing you’ll notice is that she’s not alive. You won’t know why; neither do I. (Men will say she died for them, their unfaithfulness. Comorbid conditions: depression and lack of dick. To them, she’s a common whore, archetypal. That is not the truth. (I do not know the truth. I know her.)) But nevertheless, she is dead. There’s a peculiar stillness about her. On her skin, a glossy patina of crystallized sweat. It ought to make her disgusting, but again, she’s beautiful, immutably so. It’s her birthright, being beautiful, and she has so few rights to anything, poor thing. Such is the plight of the well-heeled who had the bad fortune of sprouting breasts too shapely to wear tweed. Indeed, she’s classy. Bond girl cum Lady Godiva. (Summa cum laude also. Princeton, though she’s a Brit. Irrelevant to our story, but doesn’t it just complete the look?)

Call the bar Earth. It’ll stand the name. Call one of the women—the dead one—Vika. The other one is me.

Picture me, if you please. I am twenty six, and I am the girl next door—unobtrusively, unconsciously, unbearably hot. My husband is fifty, maybe. He’s played by a man around that age. He is very handsome, in this bar I’m calling Earth. He is well-respected. He jerks off to Marilyn Monroe. My husband does not have a name. If he ever did, I forgot it. I am too young for him, after all; babies are known to lose their mother tongue.

Vika stirs her drink, which is a beehive. “I hate you,” she says. Her lips are waxy. I want to chew them up.

”Fine,” I reply. It’s bad dialogue already. Who wrote it? Me, I guess. “Hello, Vika. You’re looking well.”

She spits out a bee. It’s very surreal. I want to paint her nude and melting. I want so many things. “Fuck you,” she grumbles. Her accent’s slipping. I am a bad sort of dreamer. She swivels around in her seat. The sky is lovely and blue, and I cannot stop the wanting.

I snap my fingers. Her bees turn purple, soapy. “How’s Jack?” I ask. Jack is my husband. That is not his name. “Did he fuck you good last night?” I speak crisply. I am a virgin in this bar.

” _Well_. It’s fuck me _well_. And no.” She eats a cherry. Subtlety has never been Vika’s forte.

”Ask him,” I say, “if he likes blowjobs or anal better.” I am very vulgar for a virgin. But then again, I have been sleeping for sixty years. Do you really blame me?

Vika does not deign to respond. She lifts one perfect eyebrow, and a thin eggshell crack opens on her forehead. She stirs the beehive again. One stings her lip.

I’m sorry, so I say “I’ll be with you soon enough.” I will be. I’ve calculated it. She is dead, which is how I know her. She is dead and will be as soon as I come, as I am the harbinger of her fate. Some might call it romantic. _Don’t touch me_ , I’ll say. I know how to play these sorts of games.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not waiting for you.” But she is. She wants to go out in fire. _No_ , she’ll say, though I don’t remember when. Even then, she’s so stubborn, Vika is. Will be. Has been, for the past six decades I’ve dreamt (known) her.

I walk toward her. The bar is very old. Marvin Gaye is playing. I don’t know the lyrics, but I tap out the beat on my thigh as I walk. I want her to watch me. I want her to want me.

Her fingers, when she finally touches my face, are cold as ice. “You bitch,” Vika says. She caresses my cheekbone. “You cunt.”

“Baby,” I say. Her eyelashes bob up and down, a good-girl flirtation. “Baby,” I repeat. “Didn’t you hear? There’s been a revolution. You can’t say things like that anymore.”

“I don’t care about your bloody revolution.” A lie.

“Do you care about me?” I remember cool hands that will feed me broth. I remember a drone. I remember flames.

“Why would that matter?” she asks. And in this, as in all matters, she is right, so I let her thumbnail press into my skin.

“I will not know you,” I say. She understands.

“My guardian angel,” Vika whispers. She grasps my hair in her hands.

The world, you know, is very quiet when you are asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell with me on Tumblr at [withatalentforsquaddrill](https://withatalentforsquaddrill.tumblr.com) (for general bullshit) or [foresme](https://foresme.tumblr.com) (for fandom bullshit).


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